Dear Nathanael (11 Months)

My dearest Nathanael,

You are eleven months old! We celebrate you today and the gift of God that you are to us. We delight in God through your life, dear one.

You seem to have leveled out some in your growth, still measuring around 29 inches (40-50th percentile) and 21 pounds (35-40th percentile). You have almost completely transitioned into table foods now, joining us in eating most of our meals. You especially love mac & cheese, meat (beef, chicken, salmon, pork), potatoes, and green beans! In fact, you prefer to feed yourself now (with finger foods) instead of having us spoon feed you. You are fascinated by silverware but definitely haven't figured out how to use it functionally on your own. Still no teeth!

This month has been quite a busy, busy month for you as you transitioned from crawling everywhere to walking everywhere! It is amazing to watch you waddle, fall, waddle, fall all over the house and yard. You are quite thrilled with yourself in this development as well. Sometimes you almost look like you're running! With your increased mobility, you even managed to unravel an entire roll of toilet paper once before we caught you. With the weather warming some, we have been able to spend more days outside; every day (multiple times) you walk over to the front door and hit on the door to let us know you desperately want to go outside. And one of your favorite things to do outside is ride in the John Deere wagon! You've managed to eat a little dirt and moss already - yuck! And you simply love to take things apart, whether it's emptying drawers and cabinets or unstacking books or toys or moving rocks from a pile. You've figured out how to climb over objects, including climbing up stairs.

Watching how you go down to sleep really shows us how you are growing up. You love your routines and thrive when we're able to stick to them. With our current lifestyle of lots of traveling, this has been difficult at times, but we have been amazed at how well you pop right back after a hard day of traveling. You are aware of when it's time to nap or go to bed and are great about going to sleep (sometimes after playing in your crib for a while, meowing at the animals on your quilt, making your car noises, etc). And to our delight, for the most part, you continue to sleep well, which is no surprise with how active you are all day!

You are communicating more and more each day, pointing being one of your biggest developments this month. You continue to say "dada" and "mama" and "breh" (bread) but haven't really ventured beyond those words. You wave bye-bye and goodnight all the time, play peek-a-boo, and sometimes raise your hands into the air when we ask how big you are. You also make your objections known quite clearly. Unfortunately for you, we don't always let you have your way. (For example, your nails must be clipped, and your diaper must be changed, and you cannot be outside every moment of the day! haha)

Nathanael Alim, we love you, son! Happy eleven months!

Lovingly,
your daddy and mommy

Nathanael Alim - 11 month old

And a few outtakes:
"Why is Mr. Bear's foot touching me?!"
Cracking up while kicking Mr. Bear's foot away
Spotting the cat and scheming how to pull out the most hair

Compare these to his 10 month pictures here.